Not Without Hope review by Bobby Blakey
Director Joe Carnahan has been churning out the action and drama flicks for years including The Grey, Copshop, Boss Level and most recently The RIP. His latest film, Not Without Hope, brings to life a true story based on the New York Times bestseller from survivor Nick Schuyler and Jeré Longman. The film stars Zachary Levi, Josh Duhamel, Quentin Plair, Terrence Terrell, and Marshall Cook, but does it do this story of survival justice, or will it be lost at sea?
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Not Without Hope follows 24-year-old Nick Schuyler who went fishing in the Gulf of Mexico, with three friends, two of them NFL players. When the boat capsized, the four men were forced to cling to the hull to survive. The US Coast Guard mounted a plane, boat and helicopter search and found the upturned boat after 43 hours.
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It’s always fascinating when true stories like this get brought to film. A lot of what happens seems unbelievable until you realize it really happened and makes it all the crazier. Carnahan knows how to frame action and drama, but this one allowed him to get a little deeper with the drama and flex his muscles as a director. The film works more than it doesn’t, setting up everything we know about these friends and their lives to make us care even more when things go south.
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The cast are all good, especially when they get to the shipwreck survival element as they have to run the usual gamut of emotions. It’s framed essentially in three stories, being the guys fighting to survive, their families struggle with the unknown and the rescue teams fighting to bring them back. It’s not an overly exciting situation that puts them in danger, but it is crafted in a way that builds enough tension to pit you on the boat with them. I was surprised by how often big moments are kind of glossed over yet still have a strong impact through the
characters’ reactions as opposed to spoon feeding the audience. No doubt it’s the narrative of knowledge of what actually took place as opposed to trying to create that Hollywood scene.
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The film works better than I had expected, which shouldn’t be a surprise with Carnahan at the helm. It did lose some of its intensity bouncing around sometimes. Had it just focused on the guys trying to survive alone it would have packed more of a punch and allowed them to streamline the run time that sometimes gets repetitive. That isn’t to say that the other story elements have no place here, they do, it just makes it harder to stay invested with each moment at times.
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I must be honest going in I hadn’t seen much about it and was surprised to how much it worked overall. If you can go in without any knowledge of the real story, then do that so you can experience the true nature of what happened as it unfolds in the film. They offer up a proper ending with footage of the news, football, and interviews of those involved as a wrap up and comparison to some of the moments in the film.
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Decide for yourself and check out Not Without Hope available now on DVD from Ketchup Entertainment.